"_At 8 p.m._--Two German officers asking us in French to surrender. This is about what they said: 'You've been able to judge of the formidable power of our guns; you have been struck by 278 shells; but we have still bigger and more powerful guns, and they will destroy you in a moment. Surrender!' Reply of our officers was, 'Our honour forbids us to surrender; will resist to the end.' Our men all cheered." Think of it--"Our men all cheered." Though the great shells were smashing the forts to pieces and grinding them to powder, though the solid concrete was crumbling into dust, and the place was strewn with dead and dying, their honour forbade them to surrender, and when their officer told the enemy so, the doomed men cheered. Never was greater courage shown. [Illustration: Bringing Provisions to Forts. _Photo, Central News_.] By the evening of the 6th General Leman had decided that his troops could make no further resistance, and that they would be shut up in Liége unless they were got away at once. He therefore ordered them to fall back from the city towards the Dyle, and so hurried was their retreat that they had only time to blow up one of the twelve Meuse bridges, and were obliged to leave an ambulance train and some twenty engines in the railway station. But the army had done its work. It had made a great and gallant stand; it had proved that the Germans were not invincible, and had won priceless time for the Allies. A time-table found on a German showed that they proposed to be in Brussels on 3rd August, and in Lille on 5th August. Already they were three days behind time. Not only had the gallant little Belgian army upset the German time-table, but it had inflicted such loss on the enemy that on the evening of Friday, 7th August, General von Emmich asked for a truce of twenty-four hours in which to bury his dead. This was refused. * * * * * [Illustration: Liége and its Forts. Note that the forts are not shown in their proper positions, but only indicate their direction with reference to the city. (_By permission of the Illustrated London News_.)] The city of Liége was now in the hands of the Germans. The cannonade had done but little harm to the buildings of the city; the inhabitants had taken to their cellars, and but few of them had been killed. When the German infantry marched in, the Burgomaster and the Bishop arranged terms with them. They behaved themselves well, and paid for all supplies. The people of Liége were surprised to see how young the German troops were, and how spick and span they looked in their new greenish-gray uniforms. They were housed in barracks, schools, convents, and other public buildings, and good order was kept.